Zürich, 1962
by Fantine Black
Summary: Don't talk to Erik about following orders. He doesn't take it very well. (AU X-Men, First Class. Charles travels to Zürich, Switzerland, to work on his thesis. There, he meets Erik Lehnsherr, who is looking for much more than Nazi gold.)


**Zürich, April 2****nd****, 1962**

Charles wakes up because someone strokes his face. 'Good morning,' Erik whispers. His eyes are so full of longing that Charles wants to roll over and touch him, too, but he can't move his left arm and foot. Both his ankle and his wrist have been tied to the bed with metal handcuffs.

Charles looks at them questioningly, and Erik chuckles. 'No, my friend. I can't just let you roam free after last night.' He kisses a fresh gash. 'Maybe if you're good today, hm?'

Charles shivers, anger, fear and desire all mixed into one. He lets Erik kiss him (he tries not to wince, Erik might bite) but he then pushes him away ever so slightly. 'What if I have to use the bathroom?'

Erik smiles, then points to a space beside the bed. Charles sees a bucket, a small piece of soap, a large bottle of water and a washcloth. He grimaces. 'Well done, you.'

'I wouldn't want you to be uncomfortable.' Erik gets up and stretches. God, he is beautiful. Even in a three piece suit. Especially in a three piece – why is he wearing a three piece suit?

'Where are you going?' He pushes himself up slightly, which makes the metal shackles on his left leg chafe uncomfortably.

'To the bank,' Erik says. He grins now, a smile that is truly predatory.

And then it all comes back to Charles. The bank. The gold. Erik's gold, as he saw it. The gold he wanted to extract, as it were.

They had fought. Not just fought. There'd been games this time, too. Nasty games. He'd tried to make him see – this gold isn't yours, Erik, it belongs to no one, it shouldn't even exist – but Erik had torn into him -they turned my people into soap, too, Charles, at least the gold is still there – and in the end there had only been pain.

Still he has to try. Some banker's life may be hanging in the balance.

'Erik!'

Erik turns to him, rigid, tense.

'Yes, Charles?'

And by God, he cannot do it. The cuts are still fresh, his arm is still sprained, and though it seems like Erik washed his face, there's blood in all kinds of places there shouldn't be.

He hangs his head.

'What about breakfast?'

A smile lights Erik's features, a real smile, and he is again the most beautiful creature Charles ever saw, and Charles only wants to love him, please, love him. Erik walks over to a bedside table and holds out a tray filled with, indeed, a hot, steaming breakfast. 'You didn't think I would forget you, did you?' he says as he puts the tray on the white sheets in front of him, beaming. Then he sits down again, ruffles Charles' hair and plants a kiss on his forehead. 'Be good now, pet,' he says, and he smells so good and why is this all so complicated?

'Be back soon,' he hears himself say, and Erik gives him a squeeze, stands up, puts on his hat before grabbing his coat and his briefcase and walks out the door.

But with him goes any semblance of wholeness. The hotel suite again looks cold and impersonal, the red specks of spittle and blood look offensive on the stark white sheets. The pain in his face seems to increase tenfold, and he reaches over for the washcloth and the bottle of water. He pours some water and holds the wet cloth against his lips. The sting is so bad it brings tears to his eyes, and he lets them fall. He stupid arsehole Charles Xavier. Ruddy fool. Goddamn jerk. _They are just following orders_, how could he have said such a thing, a mere three days ago, after all he had seen, all he had felt of the life of Erik Lehnsherr from Düsseldorf, Germany?

Because it is true. The American soldiers bombing Vietnam are following orders. The more Erik rants on about the atrocities of war, and the moral depravity of the fighting, the more Charles thinks about his American friends, those he knew before Eton, friends who will all be fighting this war.

So he said _that_. Stupid cunt.

He can still see it, the shift in his face as Erik pushes himself away from the chessboard to stomp to the bathroom. Charles isn't scared then. He has not yet had cause to be. He sighs, stands up and walks to the window. The night sky always calms him.

'Look, my friend,' he begins when he hears Erik return, but starts when Erik grabs him and twists his arms behind his back.

'Following orders?' Erik breathes. 'I've been at the mercy of men 'just following orders'.' He holds more tightly.

'Never again.'

'Of course not,' Charles says, urgently, but Erik twists his arm a little further.

'You've never been at anyone's mercy, have you?' he whispers through gritted teeth, the night's whiskey hot on his breath. 'No, you were living in luxury while others were following orders.'

Charles sneers. 'For God's sake! I was _twelve_.'

'So was I,' Erik says. 'That stopped no one.'

Charles feels rope twisting around his wrists. The terry cloth painfully restricts his bloodflow.

'Erik, untie me,' he hisses.

'Make me,' Erik whispers.

And now Charles knows his work has truly begun.

He shakes his head.

His arm feels like it is about to break. 'Damn it, Charles, are you mad? _Make_ _me_!'

'No.'

That's when Erik first strikes him. Charles immediately topples and smashes against the wall. Erik hits him again, and _again _– stop me, damn you Charles, just _stop me – _but Charles just stands there, trying not to scream.

'Why not?' Erik says finally, after Charles has slumped onto the floor. 'Why _not_, Charles?'

Charles turns to face him.

'Because you can do that yourself,' he says, his voice barely more than a whisper.

This earns him his first real beating – a rain of blows just because of Erik's displeasure. He bears it until Erik tires, and when he leaves the room, Charles weeps. He leans against the wall and sobs. When Erik comes back he hardly dares to lift his head. But Erik crouches down and cups his face.

'If you leave me,' he breathes, 'I'll find you. That's what I do, Charles, I find people.'

Charles doesn't need to read his mind to know that that is true.

**Zürich, April 4****th****, 1962**

They visit the Zoo.

Charles has been so _very _good, hasn't he, and Erik's been in an excellent mood regardless. 'Argentina,' he says, 'I knew it. They might as well annex the place.'

Charles looks askance. He's sensed some of the interaction with the banker and though he's glad the man's not dead, he suspects that has less to do with morals and more with the fact that Erik was in a hurry to get back. He's running out of time.

'Let's have a beer,' he offers.

'I have a better idea,' Erik says. Two hours later they find themselves on the banks of lake Zürich. It's still a bit chilly, but the view is spectacular, and shielded from the wind it is a fine day indeed.

Erik opens a bottle of champagne, pours himself a flute and holds it against Charles' lips. Charles nods approvingly. 'This is the real stuff. Not easy to find around these parts.'

'A gift from Geneva.' Erik hugs him closer. 'Only the best for you.'

Geneva. Right. He has to act quickly, and he'll likely won't get a chance like this again. 'A toast, then,' he proposes. He needs courage to do what he plans to, and the Dutch kind is as good as any. They raise their glasses and Charles drinks deeply. Then he strikes.

_Happiness, light. The world is a good place, and Erik must have felt that sometimes… Yet wherever Charles turns, there's a current of stress. First money. Then boots. Jeers. _Judengör. DEUTSCHE, WEHRT EUCH. _Smoke. Broken glass. There's some peace, but he's a stranger, and cut off. Then there's war – _

Charles extracts himself before they reach the ghetto. He feels sick to his stomach. _Coward!_ he scolds himself. If he can't even watch it, what must it have been like to live through? Is it any wonder Erik –

Then he tenses. Erik. Erik and his nasty games. Erik, staring at him –

He feels a hand twist in his hair. 'Did you just…?'

'No!' He freezes Erik for a split second to shrug him off. 'Not on purpose! I can't always control it, you know how it is!' It is the greatest lie he's ever told – if anything, the last days have shown how well he can control it – but Erik seems to buy it.

He lowers his eyes. 'I'm sorry, my friend,' he says softly. 'I did not wish for you to see that.'

For a few seconds, they do nothing. Then Charles takes his arm. 'Let's go home.'

Charles reaches for Erik that night, trying all he can to give some comfort to a dark and mangled soul.

He doesn't know if he succeeds, but at least there are no games.

**Zürich, April 5****th****, 1962**

There are tonight.

Erik wipes the sweat from Charles' brow. 'Why are you making this so difficult?'

Charles has to fight not to black out. He doesn't fight very hard.

'Your mind is not my plaything,' he chokes.

'_Ach, _Charles,' Erik says, his accent thicker with time. 'Of course it is.'

**Zürich, April 6****th****, 1962**

And then Charles snaps. 'You want to fight me?' he roars. 'Are you fucking mad?' He grabs Erik's collar and stares into his eyes. 'I could pop your brain like an overripe cherry. I could program your nightmares to play on a loop. I could make you claw out your eyes and enjoy it! Is that what you want, my friend, is that it? WELL?'

Erik flashes a grin that is no less demented. 'Show me, Charles.'

Charles turns away in disgust. 'Go fuck yourself.'

This earns him a blow. Erik sighs.

'Oh, my friend. You do take long to learn.'

He grabs Charles' left hand and pulls one of his fingers back. 'How's this for a little incentive?'

And then Charles does fight him – because he's tried everything and he's hurting all over and if Erik is still begging for a demonstration, he'll play. He's tried logic and pleading and love and well, fucking but he's had enough. Erik's just earned himself some extreme PAIN.

And of course it's too easy, as force always is. He can sense that Erik feels like he's in a meat grinder but none of that brings Charles any joy. Yet Erik is vulnerable now, too, and that might make him receptive.

Charles dives in.

_I don't want what you are, Erik. I want what you can be. Show me some good_…

_"Alles ist gut_," _he hears, 'everything's well,' but all he feels are fear and anger… Every thought and feeling has been tainted by hurt…_

Charles feels it seeping into himself but he keeps looking – there must have been good for pain to be this intense. But he finds none. "Abandon all hope ye who enter here", he has never believed that possible, but that is exactly what Erik has done. Everything good he finds has been twisted, made into obsession, with Schmidt and with _him._

As he leaves Erik's mind and watches his crumpled body, all he can feel is a terrible void. He tries to find back to himself, but he can only keep staring as Erik wipes away the blood from his face. 'You're dead,' Charles whispers. 'He's killed you. You're dead.'

But Erik's elated. 'Charles,' he beams, getting up, and again, 'Charles!' When Charles backs away, he embraces him. 'It's OK, pet, it's OK, I am not mad,' he says, cradling his head. 'I knew you could do it.' As Charles still says nothing, Erik whispers: 'We're brothers, you and I…'

That finally makes something creep through the darkness.

He's never been this terrified in his life.

**Buenos Aires, April 10****th****, 1962**

Charles feels oddly calm when he hears Erik runs up the stairs. It's a little sooner than he expected, and he vaguely wonders if he shouldn't have waited till he was on his home turf, whether Oxford or New York. But that would most likely have brought Raven into the mix, and he would give anything to prevent that. Besides, he's done what he needed to do; he doesn't want to live life as a marked man. And Erik will not rest until he's found him.

As soon as the door flies open he freezes him. 'Welcome, my friend,' he says, a little more surely than he feels. Erik is again wearing the light gray suit. He's flying back this evening, then.

He approaches him slowly. Erik looks haggard. Charles imagines he does too. He still has trouble seeing with his right eye. 'Bar fight,' he's been saying to those bothering to ask.

He imagines how easy it would be to escape here unharmed. He wouldn't even have to kill Erik, he could just make him forget Charles ever existed. But that would mean going back inside his mind and he is not touching that with a ten foot pole. Never again.

Any other method would make him a killer.

He grimaces.

It seems all he can do is talk to Erik.

Though not without a few precautions.

He searches Erik and finds both a gun and an assortment of knives. He then takes his wallet, his keys, his rings, his belt, even his shoes. He has to slightly shift Erik's balance for this so he will probably fall over later, but Charles is not sorry. He puts Erik's things in his briefcase and searches for the nearest potential thief. He finds a young woman struggling to pay her pimp and decides that for her, Christmas has come early. He directs her to the window, drops Erik's things into her lap and then makes certain he himself is not wearing a scrap of metal.

Then he lets Erik go.

And he does fall over, but he is up so quickly that Charles may as well not have bothered. After the first punch he wonders if he should have tied Erik up after all. After that the only thing that registers is satisfaction when he socks him one back right in the jaw.

Erik whistles. 'Taught you something, haven't I, pet?' But then knocks him down so quickly Charles' retort sticks in his throat.

'Fifteen years,' he says. 'Fifteen years I've searched for them. And then you take them away from me.'

'I couldn't let you kill them, Erik,' Charles says.

'I wasn't going to kill them, pet,' Erik whispers. 'I was going to torture them.' He strokes Charles' cheek. 'I guess now I'm stuck with you.'

'Really, my friend?' Charles sneers. 'Of all your options in this world, you think torturing me is the thing to do?'

Erik grins, more like a predator than ever before.

'It's a start.'

He sweeps the room but finds little metal to work with.

'Never mind,' he purrs. 'You know there is metal in your blood, right?'

**Zürich, March 27****th****, 1962**

Charles Xavier is having a bad day.

It's 3 p.m. and he is already half drunk though with no girls in sight he doesn't know why he bothers. His favourite other pastime, drunk mindreading, isn't half as diverting as it should be, considering the clientele of this pub consists of bankers worrying about stock prices. Well, serves him right for travelling all over Europe to buff up his thesis. Who is he trying to impress, anyway? He knows what the committee wants, and even if he didn't, he could submit today's copy of the _Daily Mail _and still get hailed as the brightest of his generation.

No, really. It's far from him to complain about being too lucky, but he is too damn lucky. He could be President of the United States tomorrow, and Empress of China too, if he so fancied. Where's the challenge? Of course, he could also burn the whole world to the ground, and that is a cock-up he doesn't want on his CV. _Quis custodiet_ and all that.

(He'd have to ask Raven. The thought makes him smile.)

It's more out of habit than anything else that he checks out another customer who comes into the bar. He doesn't look local, and the way he sits down suggests he's quite travel weary. He orders a Warsteiner, and though Charles is no expert, his accent sounds nothing like that on the street. He's also rather handsome. Charles has an eye for such a thing – if anything, his time at Eton taught him not to unnecessarily limit his options. But beauty isn't everything, and he's bored enough already. The important thing is how this man thinks.

The man is thinking about gold. At that point Charles nearly switches off. But there is something tenacious about the way he mulls over it, as if money in this case is really not the point.

And then it hits Charles. Nazi gold? There is nothing not interesting about Nazi gold. Besides, the stranger feels – _familiar._ Like Raven. As if…

The mental image of a crumpled safe confirms it. This man has powers that Charles never even dreamt of.

He can barely contain his excitement. 'Pardon me,' he says to the man's back. 'I don't wish to intrude, but - your watch. It is absolutely stunning.'

Gotcha. He loves that thing with a passion. Look at how he strokes that wristband. 'Yes. Swiss quality. The best in the world.'

'And it shows.' Charles whistles through his teeth. 'Titanium, isn't it? May I see?' As the man approaches him Charles stretches out his hand. 'The name's Xavier, by the way. Charles Xavier.'

'Erik Lehnsherr.' He walks over to Charles' table. 'You're not from here.'

'No, I'm American,' he says, smiling. 'Though my parents did not like to be reminded of that fact. They made certain I spent most of my youth in England.' He returns to the watch. 'An underrated metal, titanium.'

Erik sits down. 'That's right. All anyone ever thinks about is gold.' He screws up his face.

'You can't work gold too well,' Charles says softly.

'Of course it can be worked,' Erik says, but Charles cuts him off.

'No, Erik. _You _can't. Not like, say, iron.'

He stares at him. 'Who told you that?'

'You did.' Erik stands up. Charles grabs his hand. 'Remember the blacksmith in Maków? He thought you loved his horses. You didn't. You loved his tools.'

Erik sits down again. 'This is impossible…'

'You have your tricks, I have mine.'

Erik looks up at him. Something harsh has crept into his features. 'Prove it. Read my mind.'

And Charles dives in, hungrily at first, but with increasing trepidation. As the images flash by, he feels ever less at ease, especially when his own face starts popping up. Even more disturbing, though, is how often he sees Erik bury a coin in the forehead of man called Schmidt.

He stares at Erik, ashen faced.

Erik smiles at him. 'What do you know about me?'

'Everything.' Charles stands up. 'Excuse me, my lecture…'

But now Erik grabs his hand. 'No, no, no, Mr. Xavier. You can't just dig through a man's life and then abandon him. It's simply bad manners.' Then his face softens. 'Join me for a drink. We are both strangers in this town.' He looks almost shy now.

'Do you play chess?'

A game of chess with a potential killer_, _Charles thinks. No fucking way.

But now he knows, walking away might be tantamount to murder. Everything about Erik is violent, and he can't let such a force loose upon the world. If Charles can do anything to help, to show him another way, he must try. Noblesse oblige.

He takes a deep breath. 'I'll play.'

Erik smiles, and suddenly he is truly beautiful. He shakes Charles' hand. His eyes are brimming with tears.

'I thought I was alone.'

Charles swallows. 'No Erik, you're not alone.'

He does not say what he thinks next.

_I am. _


End file.
